


Our Morning's Rest

by ellenoruschka



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare, Romeo et Juliette - Presgurvic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Attempt at Humor, Canonical Character Death, Escalus is from Toho, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Forehead Kisses, Happy New Year Rachel, I proudly admit that Escalus's silver coat is my greatest weakness, I swear, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Non-Explicit Sex, Older Man/Younger Woman, Pillow Talk, Platonic Soulmates, Please Don't Kill Me, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, because cuuuute, but it is all in the past, from these tags you can see what a mess this story is, how come there is no separate fandom for Toho on AO3, i guess, not exactly sure but well, nothing explicit but I guess it does count as, ok enough, well even if it doesn't I'll tag anyway just to be on the safe side
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22101790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellenoruschka/pseuds/ellenoruschka
Summary: It was not what his first phrase to her had been all those years ago. No, his was a simple “It’s nice to meet you, Juliet.” He supposed it was a good thing that the sentence tattooed on her body was not such a primitive one, but a fancy, beautifully calligraphed romantic quotation from some French song. Or poem. Whatever it was.He had always been bad at poetry.
Relationships: Juliet Capulet/Escalus (Romeo and Juliet)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12
Collections: Romeo & Juliet / Romeo et Juliette Fanfic Exchange 2019





	Our Morning's Rest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WildandWhirling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WildandWhirling/gifts).



> To the surprise of exactly no one (except for myself), I decided to try my hand at writing escaliet. Here's the result. I am less than happy with it, but then again, I'm not good at writing het romance, so it was only to be expected.
> 
> Happy New Year!

“Good morning!”

Upon hearing his lover’s enthusiastic chirping, Escalus groaned and made a belligerent effort to open his eyes (or at least one of them), but very predictably failed and nuzzled back into the pillows with a sigh.

He was no longer as young as to retain the ability to cheerfully leap up at the crack of dawn after a sleepless night, especially one spent in certain activities which, however pleasurable, required a fair amount of exertion. Of course, stamina he had aplenty, which, combined with his great experience and skill, meant that his performance in bed was at least satisfactory. And, if the blissful expression on Juliet’s face last night (and every other night they had spent together, for that matter) was any indication, it was probably much more than just satisfactory... However, Escalus’s age catching up to him meant that his body needed to somehow replenish the strength spent on such enjoyable activities; and that, in turn, meant that waking up early after a night of enthusiastic lovemaking was no longer an option. The iron-willed Prince needed his sleep, as resentful as he was of ever requiring it to such a degree.

“Rise and shine!” The smell of coffee and freshly cooked breakfast hit his nostrils at the same time as his lover’s joyful voice filled his ears, and Escalus inhaled deeply, turning his head to the source of the smell and sound. He didn’t make another attempt to open his eyes though, feeling as if his eyelids were firmly glued, if not bolted, together.

“Not sure I can do either at the moment,” he murmured, his voice husky from sleep and last night’s overuse. “Just... give me a moment.”

“Just one?” chuckled Juliet, and Escalus felt the mattress shift under her slight weight as she settled down next to him. “You do look tired.”

“Cannot imagine why.”

“Ah, not too tired for sarcasm, I see,” Juliet laughed, ruffling his hair, and Escalus felt her warm lips on his cheek. She was clearly still smiling, he could tell that from the sound of her voice. “My worn-out Prince.”

He, however, couldn’t bring himself to smile in return. “Well, I am no longer what I used to be, so...”

“Maybe try telling it to someone else,” Juliet suggested as she stretched out on the bed, comfortably pressing herself to his sleep-warmed body. “And by someone else I mean someone whom you don’t, you know, fuck into oblivion on a regular basis!”

Escalus’s eyes immediately shot open at the boldness of her words, his eyebrows almost hitting his hairline, and clearly his surprise was written quite plainly all over his face, since Juliet laughed again, her blue eyes full of uncontained mirth. “Look at you, this is adorable!”

“I am not adorable, you’re adorable,” he grumbled, trying not to pout. Grown men didn’t pout, after all. It was a very childish thing to do...

...and of course, that was exactly what he was doing, wasn't it.

“Awww, now you’re pouting!” Yeah, leave it to Juliet to point out the obvious. “Do that again!”

“Do what again?”

“That face!”

“What face?” He blinked, and Juliet clicked her fingers in triumph.

“This one!” And not a second later she was already snapping a picture of him — and Escalus hadn’t even noticed her taking her phone out. She had conjured it out of thin air, it seemed, though logically it had probably been in her pocket all along; even though he was pretty sure her outfit didn’t have any pockets.

Honestly, young people these days... Escalus’s own phone was on the table across the room, and he had no inclination to see just how many phone calls he might have missed in the course of the morning. Quite the opposite, he preferred to keep it as far away from himself as he could when he was off duty...

...which was actually a very rare occurrence in and of itself: being a Mayor of one of the largest survivor cities in Europe undoubtedly had its perks, but it also had its downsides. So when Escalus did get a chance to spend a day or two the way he pleased, he tried to keep away from all unnecessary communication, and that meant ignoring his phone as best as he could. Maybe that made him old-fashioned, he mused, since almost everyone around him seemed to be glued to their phones; but, well, what of it? Juliet sure didn’t seem to mind, and she was the only person whose opinion on the subject Escalus actually cared about, seeing as it was her whom he usually spent those rare free days with.

Speaking of...

“Is my face really that ridiculous?” he wondered aloud, seeing Juliet giggle like mad at the pictures she had managed to take, and moved closer to take a look at the screen as well.

And indeed, ridiculous it was. Escalus huffed a surprised laugh and turned away in mock horror. “For the sake of Mercutio’s Queen Mab nonsense, my love, why must you be so cruel to me?”

“I am not cruel!” Juliet protested, bumping his shoulder. “I love you like this, you ridiculous man!”

“Then am I to understand that you don’t love me when I’m actually presentable?” Escalus raised an overly quizzical eyebrow, enjoying how it made his lover laugh. “Is that what you’re trying to say?”

“I think,” Juliet cocked her head to the side, feigning indecision for a moment, and Escalus reached out with a soft smile: resisting the temptation to touch her golden locks which tumbled free across her shoulders was absolutely out of the question. “I think I much prefer you like this, my Prince,” she leaned into his tender touch, almost purring, “relaxed and sleepy and ridiculous and warm. It’s good to see that you haven’t completely forgotten how to relax, you know. Sometimes I worry that you might have, but luckily...” Juliet nuzzled into his shoulder with a contented sigh and then added with a wink, “though they don’t call you the Prince for nothing, you know. You do look unbearably attractive wearing those official outfits of yours and being all strict and commanding...”

Her eyes took on a dreamy, glassy expression, and Escalus felt his cheeks grow warm, suddenly grateful for his skin tone that masked the most of it. “Am I really that impressive?” he teased, narrowing his eyes, and smirked: Juliet, with her fair complexion, was not so lucky as himself in terms of hiding her emotions, and so now her face was a charming shade of pink. It suited her very much, he found; and he had long established that he rather enjoyed making her blush.

“Well, now you’re just fishing for compliments!” she giggled and slapped his shoulder gently, sitting up. “The mighty Prince, seeking a confirmation of his good looks? I am astonished!”

She was probably expecting him to continue this playful banter in the same vein, but Escalus suddenly found himself unable to keep away from a stray, all-too-familiar thought that had nothing to do with his supposed vanity, and everything with a tiny black inscription across Juliet’s left collarbone. It became visible when she shifted and the neckline of her too-large shirt — his shirt, actually, which she borrowed a couple of years ago to wear at his house and never really gave back to him, — slipped a bit lower; and now Escalus couldn’t pry his eyes away from it however hard he tried.

_“Est-ce que tu m'aimeras un jour ?”_

It was not what his first phrase to her had been all those years ago. No, his was a simple “It’s nice to meet you, Juliet.” He supposed it was a good thing that the sentence tattooed on her body was not such a primitive one, but a fancy, beautifully calligraphed romantic quotation from some French song. Or poem. Whatever it was.

He had always been bad at poetry.

Escalus’s own soulmate mark was even simpler than that; a short _“Brother!”_ written in a curvy, small script across his shoulder blade. It was a good place, easy to hide if need be. The person to whom the words belonged was Escalus’s younger sister, the beautiful Beatrice Prince, the mother of Mercutio and Valentine... and she was long dead. He still remembered his own handwriting on her arm next to the elbow. _“Hello, little sister,”_ he told her when she saw her first; she was five at the time, and he was seven. “Goodbye, little sister,” he told her twenty years later, knowing far too well that she would not be able to hear it.

He was forty-five now.

“Penny for your thoughts, my Prince?” Juliet’s gentle whisper took Escalus by surprise, and he blinked apologetically at her, realizing that he had probably been silent for too long. She touched his face carefully, tracing her finger along his forehead and eyebrow, then his cheekbone, his jawline and finally his tightly pressed lips. Escalus kisses the tip of her finger and tried to smile.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not. I know this expression. You’re thinking about it again, aren’t you?”

He fell silent again for a moment, then nodded. Juliet bent towards him from where she was now sitting cross-legged on her half of the bed and took his hand in her own. “I’m not going anywhere, my heart.”

“We’re not soulmates, Juliet,” he reminded her, but, contrary to what his words might have meant, turned his hand to catch both of hers in his strong but gentle grip.

“I know.”

“I’m much older than you.”

“I know.”

“You could...”

“...have anyone I desired, someone younger, someone stronger, someone more attractive, yeah, yeah, I know. We’ve been through this, Escalus.”

He was silent.

“Look,” Juliet sighed and gently pulled her hand free, only to wrap her arms around him as best as she could. “I’m not going anywhere, and I mean it. Yes, we are not soulmates, nor will we ever be; but the soulmate that I had?.. I barely knew him, Escalus. Romeo was killed soon after our first meeting, do you remember that duel? And the only two things he had done wrong were to be my soulmate and to belong to a rival family at the same time. I would have never forgiven Tybalt for that... but my poor cousin is also dead.”

Escalus wanted to say something, but didn’t dare interrupt Juliet’s speech. Her eyes were sad, though not overly so, and there was something in her gaze that told him she didn’t need any words of comfort.

“I used to love the idea of soulmates. It seemed so... romantic. But after the duel my attitude changed. I hated it. Being soulmates got people killed, and what was the point? Sometimes I thought,” she sighed and continued, “is death and destruction all that there is to our world? That’s what I used to think. After Romeo’s death. After Tybalt’s death. At least Mercutio was spared.”

Escalus nodded. Mercutio and Juliet, being almost the same age, had naturally grown close over the last couple of years. At first it felt awkward to Juliet that the man she was dating had a nephew who was almost two years older than her, and another one just a year younger; but soon enough they were as thick as thieves, and when Mercutio's brother Valentine and Mercutio’s soulmate and friend Benvolio were added to the equation, those four became a force of nature. Sometimes Escalus marveled at how he was even still alive with his family looking the way it did.

“I thought...” Juliet pressed her forehead to his and looked him in the eye. “I thought that with my soulmate dead, I would never be truly happy. I thought there was nothing else left for me in the world and...” she sucked in a breath.

“And then you came.”

Escalus squeezed her hand, not knowing what to say.

“You came, and you cared about me, for whatever mysterious reasons of yours. You saved me from the marriage to the man I hated; you showed me that there still were good things left in the world; you, who had lost your own soulmate, you showed me that there could still be life after that.”

She paused.

“In the world where being together with your soulmate is seen as the ultimate goal and the only possible source of happiness, we are not soulmates. And yet here we are. Alive. Together. And happy. And you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Escalus merely hugged her close to himself in response and pressed his lips to her forehead. Juliet was not crying, she was not that type; but the way she was clutching his shoulders spoke volumes to him.

“Here we are,” he agreed softly — for how could he not? — and, never breaking the embrace, brought her fingers to his lips and started kissing each knuckle almost reverently. “And I am incredibly thankful for it... even though I still cannot bring myself to believe it sometimes.” He chuckled.

“It’s been two years, my heart, you better catch up with the times!” Juliet fought with herself for a moment but then, unable to contain her mirth, broke into a wide smile. “Why is it that you follow and accept and analyze and work through, with and around all the minute changes and developments in the whole world, and let’s not even get started on Verona, with such ease; and yet fail to accept a single change in your own life without doubting the reality of it for the rest of your days? What is this, Escalus? Where is your logic?”

“Juliet...” he smiled against her soft skin, pressing a kiss to her unmarked collarbone. “My logic lost a competition against you years ago, and so now it hides every time I so much as think about you.”

“Am I dangerous to you, then?” she wiggles her eyebrows meaningfully. “Leaving you devoid of logic and reason... this is not safe, is it, my Prince?”

“You, my dear,” Escalus suddenly pulled her even closer and pushed the covers aside to press her body flush with his own. “I’ll tell you what you are,” he promised in a deep voice, causing her to squirm a bit.

“You are beautiful,” he kissed her brow, “charming,” now her cheek, “irresistible,” he peppered small kisses along her jawline, “and absolutely, totally, incredibly dangerous. And you know what?”

“What?” she asked, a bit breathless from his kisses, and then gasped as he turned them over and pressed her into the sheets in one swift movement.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”


End file.
